40+ Best Restaurant Affiliate Programs and Networks [2024]

Here is one of the most complicated niches you'll come across as an affiliate marketer. The restaurant niche is complex no doubt, but the money to be made is worth the try. Take this as a boost of confidence, even before we go deeper. As of 2022, the restaurant niche was estimated to be worth $289 B and which is an increase of 10% from its worth back in 2021.

You can imagine how much this niche will amount to by the end of 2023. There are lots of restaurant affiliate products that you can promote as an affiliate. Some of which will be discussed in this article to educate you with the right knowledge. Regardless of the competition in the restaurant niche, affiliates are cashing out big and nothing is stopping you from joining the league of 4 to 6 figures earners, on a monthly or weekly basis.

What Are Restaurant Affiliate Programs and How Do They Work

Restaurant affiliate programs and affiliate networks help restaurant owners and restaurant product suppliers extensively market their business. The network and signal strength of this market is 80% dependent on restaurant affiliates because they do most of the work. And it's fair that they earn lots of money, in turn, to compensate for their hard work. If you want to be exposed to the opportunity of making money by promoting food locations and items, then you should consider becoming a restaurant affiliate.

Becoming a restaurant affiliate first requires you to sign up for some restaurant affiliate programs you will find. You can take your time to select the best out of the many you'll find. Then find the best restaurant offers within that restaurant affiliate program you are affiliated with and promote those. Using diverse marketing skills that are effective.

You will then be able to receive commissions from sales you instigated. However, have it at the back of your mind that being successful to the extent where you make a good income by month end requires more than just being an affiliate in this niche. There are things you must learn to work with as they'll determine your financial status after some time working as a restaurant affiliate.

What Can You Promote

Now that you know how to become a restaurant affiliate, you should equally be interested in the kinds of restaurant affiliate offers you can promote, and guess what, there are a lot you can choose from. Some of these include:

• Restaurants. Just as the name entails, you'll do more promoting restaurants as is expected in this niche. This is more like the best restaurants people can find close to them and not just any restaurant. It should serve good food at least.
• Ingredients and Products. Now, no matter how professional a chef is, he or she cannot satisfy any customer If they lack the appropriate ingredients and products. This is where this restaurant product comes in. You'll connect restaurants with ingredients and products (eg, Vegan, gluten-free, etc) that they need to stay on top of their game and satisfy every customer that works.
• Gift Cards and Coupon Codes. In a world where everything is becoming more and more expensive, including "Having a good time". Some restaurants try to make life easy for everyone and so, they sell gift cards to potential customers. As an affiliate promoting such restaurant offers, you will make good money as well.
• Caviar. Some restaurants sell the best caviar you can think of, and common sense would tell you that these restaurants need to get this caviar from the best suppliers as well. You can promote the best caviar to restaurants and make good money as well.
• Drink Coolers. We've seen a customized drink cooler and it's making rounds everywhere. Its services are exclusive. Drinks are held in columns and restaurants can even fit in a couple of other things like snack trays, etc. last we checked, these are in high demand by restaurants.
• Napkins. Because hygiene is important, you'll also find lots of restaurants getting napkins regularly. Aside from being a perfect decorative table material, customers can use it to wipe their mouths after eating. So chances are, you'll continuously supply these to restaurants.
• Restaurant Kitchen Sets. You can also promote restaurant kitchen sets like deep fryers, ice makers, work tables, etc. Restaurants can either choose to buy these in sets or single and we all know the latter can be way more expensive compared to the formal. So you'll have more traffic promoting restaurant kitchen sets.
• Appliances, Accessories, and Cookware. Appliances like ovens, ranges, and ventilators are essential to every restaurant that has the well-being of its customers in mind. Other restaurant accessories and cookware are paramount to customer satisfaction. Plus, you can have recurring traffic promoting these offers.
• Restaurant Training. The restaurant industry is a big one, and there's plenty of money to be made. So, there are people that will be interested in learning food handling, retail store training, etc. You can promote these courses to people who plan on landing a job in the restaurant industry.
• Food Delivery Services. Not many restaurants do home deliveries, but the few that do, do pay well. You can sum up a couple of bucks, from connecting consumers to restaurants that do home delivery.

• Point of Sale Services. With everything going digital, you have lots of people going online to check out restaurants' menus even before they visit that place to eat, make reservations and make sales. Your job here is to promote such restaurant offers to potential customers and earn your referral commission.

Payment Models in Restaurant Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs have unique payment models which they use to pay the affiliates working with them. In the restaurant niche, affiliate programs make use of only one payment model and that is Revenue Share. This payment model deals with the "present" of restaurant affiliates, and its functionality can be extended based on specific percentage agreements, thereby taking care of the "future" of restaurant affiliates as well. you might ask yourself, how does this payment model work? It's very simple.

Let's say, for instance, you get consumers to make reservations in a restaurant through your affiliate link. You will get paid a share of the money they pay for their reservation. And since they have to create an account first before they can make any reservations, it means they'll probably be recurring consumers. Now RevShare makes this interesting in the sense that, whenever they make reservations in the future using the account they created through your affiliate link, you'll get paid a share of the money they spend.

It covers most affiliate programs in the restaurant niche. So be rest assured that you'll continue receiving commissions in the future if you can only get potential customers to create an account through your affiliate link.

What to Consider When Choosing a Restaurant Affiliate Program

The restaurant niche is vast and so, to have the best experience as an affiliate and also be able to grow your finances in the process, you must consider certain things before working with a restaurant affiliate program. These are.

Your Familiarity with the Products

The thing is, you might be enticed to choose a restaurant affiliate program because of the commission it pays affiliates. But the unlearned truth is, it will be useless to promote food offers or restaurant products and accessories from programs, no matter how much they offer affiliates If you are unfamiliar with them. It will make your marketing poor and you won't have a selling point. For instance, if you plan on promoting pizza to consumers online, you must at least know what it tastes like and what that pizza is made of. This way, there will be a sense of emotion when you write affiliate content.

Commission Rate

Another thing to consider is the commission rate. But do not make the mistake of placing this above your familiarity with restaurant products and services. If you are good with marketing, promoting restaurant products that pay small commissions won't hit hard because you'll sell more products to meet up with programs offering high commissions but with low conversion traffic. Nonetheless, if you are confident of your marketing skills, you can alternatively find selling points on restaurant offers online. So you can settle for restaurant affiliate programs that pay high commission rates if they have good selling points at least.

Program/Product Credibility

The disadvantage of promoting unpopular restaurant products hits hard even if that program offers high commission rates. The traffic will be little to none, and it doesn't matter if that restaurant offer is great or not. As long as there aren't many people patronizing such offers to the extent that they drop credible reviews about them that people can see, or you can use as social proof, you will have a hard time convincing consumers to give it a try. Above all, it is fair to you as an affiliate to promote credible restaurant affiliate offers, the traffic will be top-notch and recurring because converting will be made easy due to past testimonies of consumers.

Cookie Duration

Working for a restaurant affiliate program that offers 3 days for cookie duration might sound unfair, compared to working with one that offers 200 days for cookie duration. But it doesn't matter in this niche since most of the restaurant affiliate offers you'll be promoting are related to food and so, potential customers act fast in this one. There's no need to fear losing referrals. However, when you talk about other restaurant products like appliances, items and even training courses, you'll find that customers and participants might need some time to make up their minds. But it's still good because most of these programs offer adequate days for cookie duration.

Minimum Payout

Dealing with minimum payout as an affiliate is a normal thing. In the restaurant niche, you'll find affiliate programs with the fair and unfair minimum payout set up for affiliates. But think about this, you shouldn't find it a problem to work for some time before you can cash out your earned money. Even if it means working longer than you expected before meeting up with the minimum payout. We'd like to look at minimum payout as the number of referrals you are expected to have at least converted before you are paid. Although the case might be different with some of the restaurant affiliate programs out there. Better go for restaurant affiliate programs with a minimum payout that you can meet up with in time for payday.

Affiliate Trackers

Affiliate trackers enable restaurant affiliate programs to track the activities of their affiliates in the field, and that includes noting the contribution of each affiliate working with that affiliate program. There's hardly a known negative side to affiliate trackers because even restaurant affiliates can use this software to determine their performance. They'll know if to step up their game or maintain it. And also, know which of their links is receiving good engagements as well as which one is not. So the takeaway is that, try to work with a restaurant affiliate program that has this software installed. It'll make your work easy to an extent.

EPC

Although not a significant factor, you can also consider the earnings per click of a restaurant affiliate program before becoming affiliated with it. Usually, restaurant affiliate programs with high EPCs do not offer good commission rates and the case is different for restaurant affiliate programs that offer good commission rates. You can calculate the EPC of the restaurant affiliate program you are working with to determine if it's worth it. It only takes what you've received at the end of the cycle, then you can divide that by the total number of clicks you received on your affiliate links to get the EPC of that program.

Traffic Sources for Restaurant Offers

People eat every day, and so there are restaurants that open every day, which means restaurant supplies are being delivered monthly, or weekly and possibly even daily as the case may be. All this means that you can promote your restaurant affiliate offers everywhere, but some traffic channels outperform others so those are the ones you should invest time in.

Social Media

When you open your social media apps these days, you'll come across people posting about foods and where they got their food from. Eating at the best restaurants with family and all. But the thing is, they are persistent with this. Every day, they have new content uploaded about the same restaurant, food products, and all.

If you haven't figured it out yet, these users are influencers. As an affiliate in the restaurant niche, you have two options with the word "Influencer". You can either be one yourself or pay people who are already established social media influencers with a big fan base to promote your restaurant offers to their audiences. If you choose to go with the former because of expenses, then it shouldn't be a problem.

Just like you must have come across, it's nothing you can't handle with practice. All you'll have to do is remain active on your social media platforms while you constantly upload content about your restaurant affiliate offers. The only ill-side to being an influencer on social media yourself is that you'll have to spend time gathering fans first before you can promote your restaurant offers, that is if you don't want to get influencers to do the job for you. That too, there is an alternative.

You can always settle for running social media Ads. There are sophisticated tools, as we'd like to call them, that will allow you to target specific audiences with your Ads. Your restaurant Ads will only be displayed to people who have pre-established interest in your offers. Have you ever thought about eating pizza, and while scrolling through the news feed on your social media account and you see Ads telling you about the best pizza within your location? That is a social media algorithm at work.

This same algorithm can help you promote your restaurant offers. Although it costs a little bit of money, you'll eventually find out that the Ads fee was worth it when you receive double, if not triple the money spent on Ads.

Website Content and Product Reviews

Social media will serve well for promoting restaurant affiliate offers, but only to an extent. Catching the big spenders will require more from you, and that is where website content and restaurant product reviews come in. Usually, restaurant owners will come online to gather more information about certain restaurant kitchen sets, accessories, and appliances even before they proceed to purchase them. Now imagine having well-detailed website content or product review that has answers to the questions restaurant owners will come asking.

You'll create more opportunities for converting potential customers through website content and product reviews if you keep this practice ongoing. Thanks to the internet, you can always find important details about your restaurant affiliate offers that will make up for what you don't know yet to deliver the best content out there because while creating website content or product review, you'll need to be detailed with your product descriptions. A single word can convince restaurant owners to purchase a restaurant product through your affiliate link.

Aside from being well-detailed, you'll need to be honest about your restaurant affiliate offers. It might be hard for you since you aim at making a profit and so, you'll try to cut out any chance of discouraging potential customers from purchasing through your affiliate link. But look at the bright side, your honesty will make readers believe your content and increase your chances of having recurring traffic sent to your restaurant affiliate offers. It wouldn't make sense to try convincing readers that black is white simply because you intend on selling black to them.

You'll have made a fool of yourself, and also create a bad name for your affiliate status. You can use images of restaurants you are promoting which is a common practice these days. No doubt, making video content will go a long way so consider linking to some YouTube videos that are related to your restaurant affiliate offers.

Tips to Promote Restaurant Affiliate Offers Successfully

Aside from knowing which traffic sources are best for promoting restaurant offers, you'll also need to know how to present your restaurant affiliate offers to potential customers. Here are some helpful tips to build on.

Familiarize Yourself with your Audience

Hey, it will go a long way to be familiar with your audience, the people who you are promoting your restaurant affiliate offers. This is one thing that makes influencers effective in what they do. Creating a fan base is not easy, but when you do. You'll enjoy countless benefits. The only way you can get a well-targeted audience is when you know what is irresistible to them. You can only know this if you are familiar with them. So practically, creating a fan base gives you a big foot forward in the restaurant niche.

Keyword Targeting and SEO

You'll have to master the art of finding good keywords. You'll need these phrases embedded in your restaurant affiliate content so that search engines can bring your restaurant affiliate offers up when potential customers search for them. Coming up with a keyword is easy, if you want to promote caviars, then caviar should be in your keyword. However, keep in mind that some keywords are very competitive, and using them will leave your restaurant content down below others that have a competitive restaurant affiliate website or content than you.

As per research, a good practice to keep this from happening is using long-tail keywords. The advantage of long-tail keywords is that it brings only specific traffic your way which can multiply your chances of converting potential customers. The disadvantage however is that you'll have low traffic and this can counter your chances of promoting other restaurant affiliate offers on your restaurant affiliate website pages. There are online tools that can create less competitive keywords that can also enable you to rank high while promoting your restaurant affiliate offers, you can use them as alternatives.

Create a Restaurant Blog/Website

Owning a restaurant niche blog or website gives you an upper hand in promoting your restaurant affiliate offers. There are different contents that you can put on a restaurant blog or website, but you'll need to keep some, particularly in mind, to maintain a steady flow of traffic. For instance, writing a review article for restaurant products that potential customers might look for might equal a successful sale from your end each time restaurant owners access your site, since you've provided answers, and even offered them an easy way to get what they want.

You can also compare two or more restaurant items. Maybe a refrigerator, or drinks cooler, etc. Outline the pros and cons of each one on your list and let restaurant owners who need these things decide which one will serve them best. No need to be savage with your comparison, small things like functionality and mobility matter with restaurant products, and customers can abandon a restaurant product for its alternative if they feel it is more versatile or functional.

Another content you must have on your restaurant website is guide content. Restaurant training products for instance require members to understand the basics of what they are getting into. Although there are classes that will teach participants the basics, most participants will want to be a step ahead and do some research on their own even before they proceed to take any training class. If you have on your restaurant affiliate website or blog, a guide on how to choose the best restaurant training class, how to become a chef, or a guide on food handling, you'll not only educate interested readers with basic knowledge, but chances are they will consider checking out the prepared list of affiliate offers outlined in your guide content.

Engage with Your Community

Engaging your community members might seem stressful, especially if you don't understand that it places you at an advantage to do so. There's a saying about food promoting love, you can exhibit this connection in your community of food lovers or chefs, and other food service workers. You can engage your community members more, by creating polls and getting their opinions on the best food or place to eat in their locations. The best gift cards and other restaurant appliances and cookware, are good poll options you can consider as well. Just consider being active on your social media account, that's all.

How are Affiliates Promoting Restaurant Offers

While there aren’t many authoritative blogs or websites promoting only restaurant offers on the internet, there are hundreds of food bloggers who promote them on social media. The thing is, these programs have several types of audience: the restaurants and the restaurant customers. So, if you’re choosing to promote these offers, make sure you choose to focus on only one of them.

Here, let’s quickly check some affiliates promoting restaurant offers to the potential customers of those restaurants. A quick check on Instagram or TikTok brings up thousands of these bloggers.

This blogger, for example, is famous on both TikTok and Instagram, and she’s famous for trying out foods or restaurants in the US. She also has affiliate links on the link in her bio.

There are many other examples just like her on other social media, such as YouTube and TikTok. As a matter of fact, there are many content creators who do exactly the same thing in their own style. One big YouTuber who does this is Lisa Nguyen. She has a channel where she posts mostly YouTube Shorts, and she talks about food and restaurants.

As you can see, she also posts affiliate links to her cooking gear, which explains a lot about this type of influencer. The food and restaurant niche are very intertwined, to the point that you can see them promote each other’s offers, just like the case of these two influencers we’ve just seen.

The important note here is to stick to certain topics, such as food reviewing, restaurant reviewing, or cooking. In the meantime, listen to what your audience says. The only thing that helped these two influencers gain the popularity they have is that they listened to their audience, engaged with them, and even made videos based on their requests.

You should be interacting with your audience and creating binge sessions for them to continue watching your content and follow it up in the future. Then, no matter who your audience is, you can promote your affiliate links and enjoy the money flowing into your pocket. However, keep in mind that if you act based on your channel or page growing too early, people will lose trust in you, so you should bring money in very sneakily and slowly, without your audience understanding that you want to make money out of them.

Conclusion

From the beginning of this article, you've read how to be a successful restaurant affiliate marketer. You've equally been educated on the various restaurant affiliate products that you can promote once you become affiliated with a restaurant affiliate program. The decision is left for you to make. Surely, this is a competitive niche, but there is a lot of money to be made.

Affiliates usually walk away with more money from niches that aren't worth this much, so you can think more about this one. One thing to take note of here is the idea that food is something that is constantly in demand and all other opportunities in this niche are created around it. The more people eat in restaurants, the more these restaurants require more products to keep running and what's more exciting is that you can be in the center of it all receiving commissions as an affiliate.